Gould described how the Goldfinch was a popular cage-bird and vast numbers were captured by bird-catchers to be sold to bird-dealers for 'two shillings and sixpence or three shillings a dozen'. Early in the morning bird-catchers 'trudged by lamp-light through the streets of London' to arrive in the country at day-break, when they set out ground-nets or took young birds from their nests.

The Goldfinches, present all year round in Britain, moved to the open uplands and commons in small groups or 'charms' once the breeding season was over, and fed on their favourite plants, thistle, groundsel and plantain. The illustration shows the male (left) with the female on a wild Common Teasel Dipsacus sylvestris.

DISTRIBUTION: Western and central Palaearctic, between about 64°N and 27°N. Partially migratory to the south. In Britain following restrictions on cagebird trapping and a long period of agriculture recession in the first half of this century numbers have risen